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Hi, friends! It’s been a little while since I’ve updated this thing. It’s been a busy couple of months! I spent half of the month of May on the road, with visits to New York City, Syracuse, and Toronto. My first book, CRYING IN FRONT OF YOUR DOG AND OTHER STORIES, debuted at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival in May, which was awesome. TCAF is always wonderful and having a book come out at the festival only made it better. After that I was back in San Diego for just two weeks before I packed everything up and moved back to upstate, NY. Anyways, let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

The first important thing I have to tell you about is that both of my new books are now available online! CRYING IN FRONT OF YOUR DOG AND OTHER STORIES can be purchased from the Grimalkin Press website and BENIGN KINGDOM: PHIL McANDREW can be purchased from the Benign Kingdom website. Please, do yourself a favor and go order these if you haven’t already! Both books came out beautifully, even better than I’d hoped they would.

Next thing: Up above, at the start of this post, is the variant cover I drew for the upcoming ADVENTURE TIME SUMMER SPECIAL comic book. It should be hitting stores towards the end of this month, I think. Thanks to Shannon Watters at BOOM! Studios for letting me do another fun cover illustration job. I’m pretty darn proud of this one. You can click the image to see a slightly larger version.

This next thing (above) is a limited edition print that Grimalkin Press will be giving out along with every copy of CRYING IN FRONT OF YOUR DOG AND OTHER STORIES that was pre-ordered. So if you pre-ordered a copy of my book through Grimalkin Press, you’ll be getting one of these. The prints won’t be available anywhere else ever again!

The George W. Bush National Monument! I drew this for the fun of it.

This little portrait is of course of another villain: Jay Leno. This is on one of several bonus cards that I wrote and illustrated for the Machine of Death card game that is coming out (I think) later this summer. The bonus cards were an incentive for people that supported the project on Kickstarter.

Here is a drawing of a naked butt and a mosquito. I drew this for a little zine about bugs that my brother and our friend Brett are putting together.

Last but not least, I drew this for my friend Meg Hunt, for her upcoming JOIN TOGETHER show in Portland, OR. I’ll have more details on that for you later!

I’m hanging out in Syracuse, NY right now after an awesome few days in New York City. I had the pleasure of visiting the MAD Magazine offices and the First Second Books offices. I’ll write more about all this stuff later - right now I need to tell you that I’ll be in Toronto this weekend for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival! Lots of great things will be happening at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (aka TCAF)!

First thing: My book, CRYING IN FRONT OF YOUR DOG AND OTHER STORIES, will be debuting at the festival! I’ll be spending most of my time hanging out and signing copies at the Grimalkin Press booth. This is the first place anyone will be seeing and buying and reading actual copies of this book. It’s very exciting.

Second thing: Benign Kingdom will also be at TCAF! I’ll be visiting the Benign Kingdom booth to sign copies of my art book from time to time as well. I don’t know the official signing schedule yet, but keep an eye on my twitter feed for that info.

Third thing: I’ll be participating in a couple of events at TCAF! First, on Saturday, my friend David Huyck and I will be hosting a drawing workshop for kids at 10:30 am. Here’s a little info from the TCAF website:

Join children’s illustrator David Huyck (That One Spooky Night) and Mad Magazine cartoonist Phil McAndrew on how to make a face that sticks. Learn how to show emotions through facial expressions and body posture - make your characters pop off the page! What do the eyebrows say? And why the heck are the eyebrows talking in the first place?

Then, on Sunday at 4:00 pm, I’ll be one of several cartoonists participating in a live drawing event. Here’s the info on that:

Four creators enter, one creator leaves! Come watch four artists draw for their lives - and for your entertainment. Winners will feast on the souls of the losers (vegetarian option available). Featuring Phil McAndrew, Lucy Knisley, Jim Rugg, and Scott C.!

Both events are going to be awesome, I am pretty darn sure!

Fourth thing: I’ve got a comic in The Hic & Hoc Illustrated Journal of Humor, which will also be debuting at the festival!

The proof copy of CRYING IN FRONT OF YOUR DOG AND OTHER STORIES arrived on my doorstep this morning! I spent a couple hours reading and re-reading the book, cover to cover. I’m really proud of this thing!

Here’s a little pattern that I put together (my first ever!) for the inside cover of the book. It’s a little rough around the edges, but I’m still real proud of it.

Speaking of the book, an early review hit the internet a few days ago over at?Thirteen Minutes. They really went into great detail and wrote very thoughtfully about almost the entire book. Here’s a little excerpt from the review that I really liked….

“Here’s a picture of Phil McAndrew’s dad and a shirtless Jimmy Carter in the 80s. I talk about it in our blurb for Phil’s new book. The book is called Crying in Front of Your Dog and Other Strories. So you know it’s good.”

It’s true! That’s my dad and shirtless Jimmy Carter. If you want to read Phil’s blurb, I put it up over here.

You can still pre-order copies of CRYING IN FRONT OF YOUR DOG AND OTHER STORIES right over here and can read more about the book right over here. And hey, it’s up on Goodreads! Maybe consider adding it to your “want to read” list, if you use that website.

I also recently received a bunch of copies of THE BOOK OF NICE from Workman Publishing, a fun little book that I spent a few months last year creating illustrations for. I believe the book officially hits stores in April, but you can pre-order a copy on amazon right now if you’d like.

What else is going on? What am I doing now that work on CRYING IN FRONT OF YOUR DOG is complete? Well, I’ve got a ton of little projects on my plate right now. At the moment I’m working on some cards for the MACHINE OF DEATH game. I’m also trying to get a few paintings done for various gallery shows. I just had another comic book cover art assignment land in my inbox and I’m finishing up work on a proposal for what will hopefully be my next big project.

Oh! And! Also! Big news: my girlfriend Rachel and I are officially going to be moving across the country from San Diego, California to Ithaca, New York soon. You may remember that we moved to San Diego a little over two years ago, driving across the country from Syracuse, New York. Well we’ll be making a triumphant return to upstate New York at the end of May. Rachel will be starting a PhD at Cornell University, which is pretty awesome. And I’m thrilled to be moving back to New York state. The last few years in Southern California have been a fun change of scenery, but I miss the lakes and trees and seasons of upstate New York. I miss being close to New York City, Toronto, DC, Pittsburgh, Boston, Philly…. and Ithaca has always been one of my favorite little cities. I can’t wait to get settled in there.

Here it is. The cover to my first book, CRYING IN FRONT OF YOUR DOG AND OTHER STORIES. If all goes according to plan, we’ll be debuting the book at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival in May and shortly afterwards will be available online and in certain fine comic shops. I want to write something long and detailed about this book, the time I spent working on it, the comics going into it, etc. But I’m going to save that for another day because holy moly, I’m exhausted! And I’ve got a few other things I want to mention today. So for now, I’ll just remind you that you can read a little bit more about the book over here and you can PRE-ORDER a copy for yourself over here. Oh! And I want to show you the full wrap-around cover illustration (sans text). Click the image to see a larger version…

Next thing on the agenda: The Hic & Hoc Illustrated Journal of Humor!

I’ve got a little comic in this book, which I understand will also be debuting at TCAF. The book was edited by the brilliant cartoonists Nathan Bulmer and Lauren Barnett. It features work by a ton of hilarious, great cartoonists and has an incredible cover (as you can see!) by the great Joe Lambert. I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy for myself.

Also! Physical copies of my Benign Kingdom art book exist! I have seen them! I have touched them! Here is a photo…

January! 2013! I’ve got lots of new things to show you and talk about!

The first big thing is that my very first book, CRYING IN FRONT OF YOUR DOG AND OTHER STORIES, is now available for pre-order! I’ve been working on it for a long time and it’s finally coming out this spring. The image up above is just one of many, many pages from the book (colored slightly just for the internet). Here’s a little info about the book from the Grimalkin Press website…

All pre-orders come with a FREE limited edition print. This particular print will only be available as part of the pre-order deal and will not be available ever again once the pre-order ends.

Okay! The next big thing I have to tell you about is BENIGN KINGDOM!

I’ve got an art book coming out as part of the next Benign Kingdom collection! I couldn’t be more excited. If you don’t know, Benign Kingdom is “a creator-owned publishing project designed to showcase the art of independent comic creators…. the goal is to produce an individual art book for each artist but also manufacture a hardcover edition that collects all four of their individual books in one beautiful collection.”

The image up above is my cover illustration for my art book. The other three artists doing books for this set are Emily Carroll, Gigi D.G., and Tyson Hesse. They’re all amazing and you can snag the entire set of books for yourself or a friend right over here.

The third thing on the agenda is… REGULAR SHOW!

My friends over at BOOM! Studios asked me to draw a variant cover for the first issue of the new Regular Show comics that they’re publishing. I love doing these covers for BOOM! and I hope I get to do more. I don’t know when exactly the first issue comes out, but I do know that my friend KC Green is writing the comics and that is absolutely perfect.

My friend Nathaniel MacDonald recently commented on facebook that “it’s officially Phil McAndrew awareness month.” I think he might be right! A bunch of stuff with my work in it (or on it) is hitting shelves this month.

First thing! The new issue of MAD MAGAZINE hits shelves next week on the 18th! I wrote one of the 20 Dumbest Things pages (I got paid to make fun of Rush Limbaugh - a dream come true). This was my first time getting paid to write stuff without also providing illustrations! But don’t worry - I’ve got a comic in this issue too (which I did illustrate). I posted a little tiny glimpse of the comic a while back, but you should pick this issue up and read the whole thing.

Second thing! Also coming out next week on the 19th is issue #3 of the BRAVEST WARRIORS comic! I did a variant cover for this issue (above). Many thanks to Shannon Watters at BOOM! for letting me do another cover. I highly recommend picking up a copy, if not for me, then for the amazing back-up comic that my friend Ryan Pequin has in this issue. It’s pure gold.

Third thing! Speaking of variant covers… if you missed out on the cover I did for issue #8 of the ADVENTURE TIME comics (above), I just learned that it’s been collected in this little book that came out last week, ADVENTURE TIME: COVER SHOWCASE. I ran out and picked up a copy for myself today and it’s awesome, having all these great cover illustrations by so many great artists, many of whom I consider good friends, collected together into one little book. The Cover Showcase book looks like this, with a great cover by Paul Pope.

Other things! I’m working on ANOTHER comic book cover right now. I can’t say what it’s for yet - the comic series hasn’t been announced by the publisher yet! I’m also working hard, trying to finish up drawing my book. I posted a full new comic from the book online a while back, right over here. And here are some assorted little bits and glimpses.

My friend Maré Odomo recently drew me and lots of other cool people into a comic that he made for VICE. I’m towards the end, shaking my booty. If you follow me on twitter, you probably know that I love Maré’s comics. I think he’s doing some really neat, genuine, magical things and I desperately hope lots of publishers start scrambling to work with him because I want to own some Maré Odomo books. Maré interviewed me earlier this year… you can read that over here.

It’s almost Christmas time! Around this time I like to re-post the Krampus illustration I did for the Rochester City Newspaper a couple years ago (above). For the holidays I’ll be heading back to visit the snowy wonderland from which I came: Syracuse, NY. I’m going to be hanging out on the East coast for a couple weeks, from the 18th of December until the 3rd of January. I haven’t been back home to Syracuse (or anywhere on the East coast) for a year and I’m really looking forward to it. While I’m home I’m mostly going to take it easy, but I am planning to spend some time working on a few different book proposals that I’ve been tinkering with for a while now so that I can get the ball rolling on a few big projects I’d like to tackle in 2013. Maybe I’ll write a bit more soon about what’s in store for 2013 and reflect a bit on 2012, but for now I gotta get back to work! I have to finish a ton of stuff before I head to the East coast next week!

Hello friends! I’m working on my book, on schedule to have it finished very soon. Up above is a recently completed page.

I also recently finished work on another book project, creating 45 illustrations for a book that is being published by Workman Publishing. This project is what filled most of my time the past two months, one month spent working on rough sketches and the other spent working on the final illustrations. Here’s what 45 illustrations looks like, stacked in a pile…

I’ve also got yet another book project in the works right now. I’ll talk a lot more about that one as we get closer to the end of the year.

Oh! I also wanted to mention that I’ll have a comic in an upcoming issue of MAD Magazine. This will be the third time I’ve contributed comics to MAD and it’s also the biggest comic I’ve sold to them so far. I’m not certain which issue it’ll be in, but I think either #519 or #520. Here’s a tiny peek…